FILW ✋

A Personal Message From the Founder of Eternal Blades ❤️⚔️ First of all, I want to sincerely thank everyone who believed in Eternal Blades, supported our team, and stood beside us during difficult times. I know many of you have questions. Some of you trusted us enough to mint or purchase a significant number of NFTs. Some are disappointed by the floor price, while others are concerned about our progress and recent silence. You deserve to hear directly from me. This will be a long and very personal message. If you don't feel like reading it, I completely understand. But for anyone wondering what happened, what we've built, and where we're going, I want to explain everything as openly as I can. Who am I, and why did I build Eternal Blades? I'm a civil engineer, a husband, and a father. I've also spent years working full-time in crypto and Web3. I'm not an anonymous founder. Many people in this ecosystem know me, and I've never tried to hide who I am. I don't own a house or a car. Over the past nine months, I invested more than $40,000 into Eternal Blades, including personal savings and money I borrowed toward the launch. I did this because I genuinely believed we could build something special. My vision was never to launch a quick NFT collection, generate some hype, and disappear. I wanted to build a detailed 3D fantasy universe, with original characters, armor, weapons, and hundreds of carefully designed traits. A collection that could eventually become the foundation of something much bigger. And I wanted to build it on ApeChain. I believed in the long-term vision of the Ape ecosystem, and I wanted Eternal Blades to become a meaningful part of it. For nine months, our team worked incredibly hard to make that happen. What was supposed to happen after mint? There was much more planned than the collection itself. We had prepared ideas and early foundations for interactive experiences on our website, where holders could explore their characters, test animations, and eventually access downloadable 3D assets. We also planned a soft-staking system where holders could accumulate Eternal Points and participate in a substantial rewards program. If the collection had minted at our original target price of approximately $25 per NFT, we intended to allocate part of the proceeds toward rewards involving BAYC, ApeChain NFTs, $APE, and Eternal Blades NFTs. We had also explored physical merchandise, including metal collectibles, 3D-printed characters, and custom Medieval and Future-themed PC cases. These weren't ideas we came up with after launch. They were part of the broader universe we wanted to create. But they depended on the funding we expected to raise. And then there was the game. Our long-term vision is an ambitious MMORPG. We envisioned approximately ten playable characters, including characters from the collection and additional original designs, with expanded armor sets, weapons, unique abilities, skill animations, and much more. We knew from the beginning that building a game of that scale would require outside investment. Our plan was to prepare a detailed game presentation and approach potential investors while pursuing a more achievable experience within Otherside using funds from the mint. That would have allowed us to keep building something playable while working toward the larger vision. But the launch changed everything. We didn't raise anything close to the amount we had planned for. The collection's mint price had to be reduced dramatically, and the financial foundation of our original roadmap was no longer there. After nine months of development, investing more than $40,000 of my own resources, and making additional payments following the launch, our remaining budget has become extremely limited. We still have financial obligations to meet, and the reality is that we simply don't have the resources we originally expected to continue development at the pace we had planned. This has forced me to make some incredibly difficult decisions. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to keep our team together, how to make the best use of what we have left, and how to move Eternal Blades forward without compromising the vision that brought us here. I want to be transparent about this because it directly affects what we can realistically deliver and how quickly we can deliver it. It would be easy for me to keep talking about all our ambitious plans without acknowledging this reality. But that wouldn't be fair to you. I know some of you are looking at the floor price and wondering what happened. Believe me, I'm looking at it too. Do you think I'm happy seeing something we've spent nine months building trading at these prices? Do you think I invested my savings, borrowed money, assembled a talented team, and worked countless sleepless nights just to walk away when things became difficult? Of course not. But I also understand that my personal investment and our team's hard work do not automatically make the collection valuable in the market. Trust has to be earned through what we deliver, not simply through how much we've spent. And I understand why some of you feel disappointed. I also want to talk about expectations. Throughout this journey, we received support from people within the Ape ecosystem and had many valuable conversations. I'm grateful for that. At the same time, I had hoped that our work might attract more attention, partnerships, and financial support. Perhaps I was too optimistic about what would happen once people saw the quality of what we were building. We even spent around a month creating a special character for Adam Weitsman because I admired his support for the NFT community and hoped he might take an interest in our vision. He was always kind in our conversations, and I appreciate that. He never owed us anything. Looking back, I realize I allowed some of my hopes to become expectations. That's something I have to take responsibility for. And I don't want anyone to lose faith in ApeChain or the people building here because of our experience. I still believe in this ecosystem. So what happens now? The difficult truth is that our original development plan cannot continue at the same pace with the funds currently available. That's why we've been working behind the scenes to reassess our priorities, revise our roadmap, explore more affordable development approaches, and prepare for potential investment discussions. Our game presentation is one of the things we're currently working on. We need to separate what we can build with our existing resources from what requires additional funding. We also need to communicate more consistently. Our silence made people worry, and I understand that. Even when we're working behind the scenes, you shouldn't have to guess whether we're still here. I take responsibility for that, and we're working to improve it. I'm also deeply aware of the responsibility I have toward our team. These are talented people who trusted me, invested their time, and worked incredibly hard on Eternal Blades. I want to find a sustainable way to continue building with them. And to everyone holding Eternal Blades... I know you didn't support us just to hear how difficult this journey has been. You supported us because you believed in what we could create. You deserve progress, transparency, and realistic plans. I can't promise you a particular floor price. I can't promise that investment will arrive tomorrow, or that every feature we originally envisioned will be delivered on the timeline we wanted. But I can promise that I will continue doing everything within my ability to give Eternal Blades a future. I haven't abandoned this project. I'm still here. I'm still working. And I'm not giving up on the universe we set out to build. My greatest hope is that one day you'll look back at this difficult period and feel proud that you were part of Eternal Blades from the beginning. Thank you to everyone who has stayed, everyone who has offered advice, everyone who has criticized us fairly, and everyone who still believes in what we're trying to create. Your trust means more to me than you probably realize. GemBatu Founder, Eternal Blades ❤️⚔️